Woman2Woman Empowerment helps jailed women prepare for release

Monday

Oct 14, 2013 at 12:01 AM

Roxanne Harris is still startled when she hears the jail doors closing behind her. She knows it is a noise she will hear every week. She knows she is locked in. But still, she knows the jail is the place she needs to be. Harris is the leader of Woman2Woman Empowerment, a Christian nonprofit organization that helps women in the Tuscaloosa County Jail prepare and then adjust to re-entry into society.

By Molly OlmsteadSpecial to the Tuscaloosa News

Roxanne Harris is still startled when she hears the jail doors closing behind her. She knows it is a noise she will hear every week. She knows she is locked in. But still, she knows the jail is the place she needs to be. Harris is the leader of Woman2Woman Empowerment, a Christian nonprofit organization that helps women in the Tuscaloosa County Jail prepare and then adjust to re-entry into society.“I jump when I hear that big clank,” she said. “But I go back because I know the information that we have helps change people's lives.”Woman2Woman Empowerment offers two voluntary courses to aid the women in life skills, one for incarcerated women and one for recently released women.Deborah Abrams, a member of Woman2Woman Empowerment's board of directors, took the courses before and after her seven months in the county jail. She served jail time on trafficking and manufacturing methamphetamine charges. Abrams, who now works at a tractor supply company in Northport, said the courses helped her avoid falling back into old ways.“The first 45 days after you get out of jail is the hardest,” Abrams said. “Without Ms. Roxanne and family and God, I'd probably be doing drugs.”The in-jail program is an eight- to 10-week program that teaches lessons about self-esteem, forgiveness, self-control and other life skills through a biblical perspective.Harris said the students examine the stories of women in the Bible as a discussion starter.“It's easy for women to talk about other women and not themselves,” Harris said. “But it's based on their life experiences.”The class also makes an action plan for the women's release, encouraging them to plan for their personal situations when they are released.The program, which accepts 20 women at a time, is set to graduate its third class in five weeks. Harris said there is usually a waiting list of women eager to join the class.A second class works with recently released women on more immediate life skills in a 16-week course at the McDonald Hughes Community Center. Teachers guide the women through issues of employability, finances, professional behavior, stress management and more.“They've never been taught before how to act in a mainstream way,” Harris said.The program also helps women with job searches, finding a place to live and getting food and clothes.For Abrams and other women, the guidance is helpful in a difficult transition period.“A lot of people get very discouraged because they can't find work, so they end up back in jail,” she said. “Ms. Roxanne taught me not to give up.”To Harris, the focus is not on the number of women helped but on the individual successes.“It's about the one-to-one, about being effective on a personal level,” she said.Harris said she has witnessed many success stories and she finds the work gratifying. She said she values seeing a woman understand a lesson and take it to heart.“I love that look you see when they finally get it,” she said. “You can see it in the eyes — it makes that connection and becomes a reality.”She said the process is not always a smooth one. Sometimes, she said, the women aren't committed to rejoining society and they end up back in jail.“They have to want it for themselves,” she said. “So you just have to work with them.”Harris founded Woman2Woman Empowerment in 1998 in Cumberland, Md., transforming an existing women's Bible study into a service organization to help women in the community.Harris, whose husband worked for the Federal Bureau of Prisons for more than 20 years, was reluctant at first to work in prisons. However, when a friend told her about an opportunity to work with county jails 13 years ago, she found the idea less frightening than work with federal prisons, and she decided she needed to help. Harris and her husband moved to Tuscaloosa in March 2012 after her husband was almost transferred to the Pickens County city of Aliceville for his job. When he decided to retire instead, Harris felt she had been meant by God to move to Alabama anyway, so they chose to move to Tuscaloosa, the closest more populous city. They moved with her community service work in mind.“I was told by the Lord we were needed in Tuscaloosa,” she said. “I just knew that was where I was supposed to be.”She joined the College Hill Baptist Church as an associate pastor and is now in charge of the church's women's department, which supports Woman2Woman Empowerment.She divides her time between teaching classes at the jail and the Jesus Way Women's Shelter, and running the organization. She said she is always looking for more sponsors and for teachers, who commit around four hours to teach the women practical life skills. She said the teachers only need patience and the belief that people deserve another chance.Harris said Woman2Woman Empowerment's next goal is to coordinate a course with Tuscaloosa County that would serve as an alternative to imprisonment for some cases. She hopes the course would avoid what she believes is an environment that can perpetuate criminal behavior.Harris is also working on developing the new men's branch of Empowering Lives, which would be a companion program to Woman2Woman Empowerment.Anyone interested in the organization can call Woman2Woman Empowerment at 205-552-5628 or email info@woman2womanempowerment.org.